to Ireland! At Liverpool was Mr. Laughlin, <ref>Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Embassy in London.</ref> Charg&eacute; d'Affaires in London

+

to Ireland! At Liverpool was Mr. Laughlin, <ref>Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Embassy in London.</ref>Charg&eacute; d'Affaires in London

since Mr. Reid's death, to meet me, and of course the consul,

since Mr. Reid's death, to meet me, and of course the consul,

Mr. Washington. . . . On our arrival in London, Laughlin explained

Mr. Washington. . . . On our arrival in London, Laughlin explained

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country town in a rural state of our Union. Nobody asked for

country town in a rural state of our Union. Nobody asked for

anything for an embassy: nobody got anything for an embassy.

anything for an embassy: nobody got anything for an embassy.

−

I made up my mind in ten minutes that I'd get out of this place. <ref>In about a year Page moved the Chancery to the present satisfactory quarters at No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.</ref>

+

I made up my mind in ten minutes that I'd get out of this place.<ref>In about a year Page moved the Chancery to the present satisfactory quarters at No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.</ref><br><br>At the Coburg Hotel, we were very well situated; but the hotel

−

<br><br>At the Coburg Hotel, we were very well situated; but the hotel

+

became intolerably tiresome. Harold Fowler and Frank and I were

became intolerably tiresome. Harold Fowler and Frank and I were

−

there until W.A.W.P. <ref>Mrs. Walter H. Page.</ref>

+

there until W.A.W.P. <ref>Mrs. Walter H. Page.</ref>and Kitty <ref>Katharine A. Page, the Ambassador's daughter.</ref>came (and Frances Clark came with them). Then we were just a

−

and Kitty <ref>Katharine A. Page, the Ambassador's daughter.</ref>

+

−

came (and Frances Clark came with them). Then we were just a

+

little too big a hotel party. Every morning I drove down to the

little too big a hotel party. Every morning I drove down to the

old hole of a Chancery and remained about two hours. There wasn't

old hole of a Chancery and remained about two hours. There wasn't

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of presenting a frank and yet sympathetic picture of British society

of presenting a frank and yet sympathetic picture of British society

and British life as it was just before the war.

and British life as it was just before the war.

+

<BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>

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<br><br>The Coburg Hotel,<BR>

<br><br>The Coburg Hotel,<BR>

Carlos Place, Grosvenor Square, London, W.

Carlos Place, Grosvenor Square, London, W.

−

<br><br>DEAR EFFENDI: <ref>"Effendi" is the name by which Mr. F. N. Doubleday, Page's partner, is known to his intimates. It is obviously suggested by the initials of his name. </ref>

+

</center>

−

<br><br>You can't imagine the intensity of the party feeling here.

+

+

<br><br>DEAR EFFENDI: <ref>"Effendi" is the name by which Mr. F. N. Doubleday, Page's partner, is known to his intimates. It is obviously suggested by the initials of his name.</ref><br><br>You can't imagine the intensity of the party feeling here.

I dined to-night in an old Tory family. They had just had a &quot;division&quot;

I dined to-night in an old Tory family. They had just had a &quot;division&quot;

an hour or two before in the House of Lords on the Home Rule

an hour or two before in the House of Lords on the Home Rule

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<br><br>Yours,

<br><br>Yours,

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

−

<br><br>.

+

−

<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Herbert S. Houston</FONT></I>

+

+

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Herbert S. Houston</FONT></I>

<br><br>American Embassy<BR>

<br><br>American Embassy<BR>

London<BR>

London<BR>

−

Sunday, 24 Aug., 1913.

+

Sunday, 24 Aug., 1913.</center>

<br><br>DEAR H. S. H.:

<br><br>DEAR H. S. H.:

<br><br>. . . You know there's been much discussion of the decadence

<br><br>. . . You know there's been much discussion of the decadence

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future---that's what's keeps him so alert. They say to me: &quot;You

future---that's what's keeps him so alert. They say to me: &quot;You

have frightful things happen in the United States---your Governor

have frightful things happen in the United States---your Governor

−

of New York,(<A NAME="n16"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#16">16</A>)

+

of New York,<ref>A reference to William SuIzer, Governor of New York, who at this time was undergoing impeachment.</ref>your Thaw case, your corruption, etc., etc.; and yet you seem

−

your Thaw case, your corruption, etc., etc.; and yet you seem

+

sure and tell us that your countrymen feel sure of the safety

sure and tell us that your countrymen feel sure of the safety

−

of your government.&quot; In the newspaper comments on my Southampton(<A

+

of your government.&quot; In the newspaper comments on my Southampton<ref>See Chapter VIII, page 258.</ref>speech the

clearly falls into our hands?<ref>The astonishing thing about Page's comment on the leadership of the United States---if it would only take this leadership---is that these letters were written in 1913, a year before the outbreak of the war, and eight years before the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921-22.</ref>And how can we use the English for the highest uses of democracy?

−

And how can we use the English for the highest uses of democracy?

+

<br><br>You see their fear of an on-sweeping democracy in their social

<br><br>You see their fear of an on-sweeping democracy in their social

treatment of party opponents. A Tory lady told me with tears

treatment of party opponents. A Tory lady told me with tears

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to think that the impeachment of governors is common and ought

to think that the impeachment of governors is common and ought

to be commoner. One delicious M. P. asked me: &quot;Now, since

to be commoner. One delicious M. P. asked me: &quot;Now, since

−

the Governor of New York is impeached, who becomes Vice-President?&quot;(<A

+

the Governor of New York is impeached, who becomes Vice-President?&quot;<ref>Just what this critical Briton had in mind, in thinking that the removal of a New York governor created a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency, is not clear. Possibly, however, he had a cloudy recollection of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt, after serving as Governor of New York State, became Vice-President, and may have concluded from this that the two offices were held by the same man.</ref>Ignorance, unfathomable ignorance, is at the bottom of much of it; if the

room while an Ambassador talks!<ref>For years this idea of the stenographer back of a screen in the Foreign Office has been abroad, but it is entirely unfounded. Several years ago a Foreign Secretary, perhaps Lord Salisbury, put a screen behind his desk to keep off the draughts and from this precaution the myth arose that it shielded a stenographer who took a complete record of ambassadorial conversations. After an ambassador leaves, the Foreign Secretary, however, does write out the important points in the conversation. Copies are made and printed, and sent to the King, the Prime Minister, the British Ambassador in the country to which the interview relates, and occasionally to others. All these records are, of course, carefully preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office.</ref>I wonder if my comments on certain poets, which I have poured

your friend Canon Rawnsley(<ref>The Rev. Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, the well-known Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick, poet and student of Wordsworth. President Wilson, who used occasionally to spend his vacation in the Lake region, was one of his friends.</ref>has, without suspecting it, done good service in diplomacy.

−

has, without suspecting it, done good service in diplomacy.

+

<br><br>The newspaper men here, by the way, both English and American,

<br><br>The newspaper men here, by the way, both English and American,

are disposed to treat us fairly and to be helpful. The London

are disposed to treat us fairly and to be helpful. The London

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courtesies, we want a fight with them---a good stiff fight about

courtesies, we want a fight with them---a good stiff fight about

something wherein we are dead right, to remind them sharply that

something wherein we are dead right, to remind them sharply that

−

we have sand in our craw.(<A NAME="n26"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#26">26</A>)

+

we have sand in our craw.<ref>It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the Ambassador was thinking only of diplomatic "fight."</ref>I pray every night for such a fight; for they like fighting men.

−

I pray every night for such a fight; for they like fighting men.

+

Then they'll respect our Government as they already respect us---if

Then they'll respect our Government as they already respect us---if

we are dead right.

we are dead right.

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other member of the Cabinet, but he seems to me the best-balanced

other member of the Cabinet, but he seems to me the best-balanced

man of them all.

man of them all.

−

<br><br>1 can assure you emphatically that the tariff act(<A NAME="n27"></A><A

+

<br><br>1 can assure you emphatically that the tariff act<ref>The Underwood Bill revising the tariff "downward" became a law October, 1913. It was one of the first important measures of the new Wilson Administration. </ref>does command their respect and

−

HREF="Pagenotes.htm#27">27</A>) does command their respect and

+

is already having an amazing influence on their opinion of our

is already having an amazing influence on their opinion of our

Government. Lord Mersey, a distinguished law lord and a fine

Government. Lord Mersey, a distinguished law lord and a fine

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<br><br>Most heartily yours,

<br><br>Most heartily yours,

<br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

−

<br><br>.

+

−

<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To David F. Houston</FONT></I>(<A

+

−

NAME="n28"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#28">28</A>)

+

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To David F. Houston</FONT></I><ref>Secretary of Agriculture in President Wilson's Cabinet.</ref><br><br>American Embassy, London [undated].

have been here to-day because Mr. and Mrs. Sayre<ref>Mr. and Mrs. Francis B. Sayre, son-in-law and daughter of President Wilson, at that time on their honeymoon trip in Europe.</ref>arrived this morning. Every one

−

HREF="Pagenotes.htm#31">31</A>) arrived this morning. Every one

+

of 'em asked the same question, &quot;Who met them at the station?&quot;

of 'em asked the same question, &quot;Who met them at the station?&quot;

That's the chief thing they wished to know. When I said &quot;I

That's the chief thing they wished to know. When I said &quot;I

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hangs over us all the time. But we manage to feel our way about.

hangs over us all the time. But we manage to feel our way about.

<br><br>A poor photograph goes to you for Xmas---a poor thing enough

<br><br>A poor photograph goes to you for Xmas---a poor thing enough

−

surely. But you get Uncle Bob(<A NAME="n32"></A><A HREF="Pagenotes.htm#32">32</A>)

+

surely. But you get Uncle Bob<ref>Mr. Robert N. Page, the Ambassador's brother, was at this time a Congressman from North Carolina.</ref>busy on the job of paying for an Ambassador's house. Then we'll

−

busy on the job of paying for an Ambassador's house. Then we'll

+

bring Christmas presents home for you. What a game we are playing,

bring Christmas presents home for you. What a game we are playing,

we poor folks here, along with Ambassadors whose governments

we poor folks here, along with Ambassadors whose governments

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<br><br>Affectionately,

<br><br>Affectionately,

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

−

<br><br>.

+

−

<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Frank N. Doubleday and

+

+

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To Frank N. Doubleday and

Others</FONT></I>

Others</FONT></I>

<br><br>London, Sunday, December 28,1913.

<br><br>London, Sunday, December 28,1913.

+

</center>

<br><br>MY DEAR COMRADES:

<br><br>MY DEAR COMRADES:

<br><br>I was never one of those abnormal creatures who got Christmas

<br><br>I was never one of those abnormal creatures who got Christmas

Line 1,041:

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<br><br>Yours heartily,

<br><br>Yours heartily,

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>W. H. P.</BLOCKQUOTE>

−

<br><br>.

+

−

<P ALIGN=CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To the President</FONT></I>

+

+

<CENTER><I><FONT SIZE="+1">To the President</FONT></I>

<br><br>American Embassy, London<BR>

<br><br>American Embassy, London<BR>

[May 11, 1914]

[May 11, 1914]

+

</center>

<br><br>DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

<br><br>DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

<br><br>The King of Denmark (I always think of Hamlet) having come

<br><br>The King of Denmark (I always think of Hamlet) having come

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to-day <I>before </I>dessert! I tried three months to persuade

to-day <I>before </I>dessert! I tried three months to persuade

my &quot;Boots&quot; to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes

my &quot;Boots&quot; to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes

−

under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every &quot;Boots&quot;

+

under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every &quot;Boots&quot; in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: &quot;It is now universally conceded by the French and the Americans that the decimal system is a failure,&quot; and he went on to concoct a scheme for our money that would be more &quot;rational&quot; and &quot;historical.&quot; In this hot debate about Ulster a frequent phrase used is, &quot;Let us see if we can't find the right formula to solve the difficulty&quot;; their whole lives are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters and thistles and O. M.'s and K. C. B.'s and all manner of gaudy sinecures be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My servants

−

in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an

+

sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid wouldn't

−

afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: &quot;It is

+

yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal consideration---any

−

now universally conceded by the French and the Americans that

+

more than a royal person of a certain rank would yield to one

−

the decimal system is a failure,&quot; and he went on to concoct

+

of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as doomsday.

−

a scheme for our money that would be more &quot;rational&quot;

+

So you argue, till you remember that it is these same people

−

and &quot;historical.&quot; In this hot debate about Ulster a

+

who made human liberty possible---to a degree---and till you

−

frequent phrase used is, &quot;Let us see if we can't find the

+

sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons, mercilessly

−

right formula to solve the difficulty&quot;; their whole lives

+

pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they keep all

−

are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters and thistles

+

these outworn things because they are incapable of changing anything,

−

and O. M.'s and K. C. B.'s and all manner of gaudy sinecures

+

or do these outworn burdens keep them from becoming able to change

−

be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My servants

+

anything? I daresay it works both ways. Every venerable ruin,

−

sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid wouldn't

+

every outworn custom, makes the King more secure; and the King

−

yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal consideration---any

+

gives veneration to every ruin and keeps respect for every outworn custom.

−

more than a royal person of a certain rank would yield to one

+

<br><br>Praise God for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical

−

of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as doomsday.

+

foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there

−

So you argue, till you remember that it is these same people

+

are men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous stock.

−

who made human liberty possible---to a degree---and till you

+

<br><br>A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy nut to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their thought on us. They never forget that we are 100 million strong

−

sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons, mercilessly

+

and that we dare do new things; and they dearly love to ask questions about---Rockefeller! Our power, our adaptability, our potential wealth they never forget. They'll hold fast to our favour for reasons of prudence as well as for reasons of kinship. And, whenever we choose to assume the leadership of the world, they'll grant it---gradually---and follow loyally. They cannot become French, and they dislike the Germans. They must keep in our boat for safety as well as for comfort.

−

pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they keep all

+

<BLOCKQUOTE>

−

these outworn things because they are incapable of changing anything,

+

−

or do these outworn burdens keep them from becoming able to change

+

−

anything? I daresay it works both ways. Every venerable ruin,

+

−

every outworn custom, makes the King more secure; and the King

+

−

gives veneration to every ruin and keeps respect for every outworn

+

−

custom.

+

−

<br><br>Praise God for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical

+

−

foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there

+

−

are men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous

+

−

stock.

+

−

<br><br>A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy

+

−

nut to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their

+

−

thought on us. They never forget that we are 100 million strong

+

−

and that we dare do new things; and they dearly love to ask questions

+

−

about---Rockefeller! Our power, our adaptability, our potential

+

−

wealth they never forget. They'll hold fast to our favour for

+

−

reasons of prudence as well as for reasons of kinship. And, whenever

+

−

we choose to assume the leadership of the world, they'll grant

+

−

it---gradually---and follow loyally. They cannot become French,

+

−

and they dislike the Germans. They must keep in our boat for

+

−

safety as well as for comfort.

+

−

<BLOCKQUOTE>

+

<br><br>Yours heartily,

<br><br>Yours heartily,

<br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

<br><br>WALTER H. PAGE.</BLOCKQUOTE>

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day and holds its moisture down so that every inch of it is forever

day and holds its moisture down so that every inch of it is forever

green; and somehow men thrive as the lawns do---the most excellent

green; and somehow men thrive as the lawns do---the most excellent

−

of all races for progenitors. You and I(<A NAME="n33"></A><A

+

of all races for progenitors. You and I<ref>This is from a letter to President Wilson.</ref>can never be thankful enough that our ancestors came of this stock. Even those that have stayed

Latest revision as of 23:58, 17 January 2009

THE London Embassy is the greatest diplomatic gift at the disposal
of the President, and, in the minds of the American people, it
possesses a glamour and an historic importance all its own. Page
came to the position, as his predecessors had come, with a sense
of awe; the great traditions of the office; the long line of distinguished
men, from Thomas Pinckney to Whitelaw Reid, who had filled it;
the peculiar delicacy of the problems that then existed between
the two countries; the reverent respect which Page had always
entertained for English history, English literature, and English
public men---all these considerations naturally quickened the
new ambassador's imagination and, at the same time, made his arrival
in England a rather solemn event. Yet his first days in London
had their grotesque side as well. He himself has recorded his
impressions, and, since they contain an important lesson for the
citizens of the world's richest and most powerful Republic, they
should be preserved. When the ambassador of practically any other
country reaches London, he finds waiting for him a spacious and
beautiful embassy, filled with a large corps of secretaries and
servants---everything ready, to the minutest detail, for the beginning
of his labours. He simply enters these elaborate state-owned and
state-supported quarters and starts work. How differently the
mighty United States welcomes its ambassadors let Page's memorandum
tell:

The boat touched at Queenstown, and a mass of Irish reporters
came aboard and wished to know what I thought of Ireland. Some
of them printed the important announcement that I was quite friendly
to Ireland! At Liverpool was Mr. Laughlin, [1]Chargé d'Affaires in London
since Mr. Reid's death, to meet me, and of course the consul,
Mr. Washington. . . . On our arrival in London, Laughlin explained
that he had taken quarters for me at the Coburg Hotel, whither
we drove, after having fought my way through a mob of reporters
at the station. One fellow told me that since I left New York
the papers had published a declaration by me that I meant to
be very "democratic" and would under no conditions
wear "knee breeches"; and he asked me about that report.
I was foolish enough to reply that the existence of an ass in
the United States ought not necessarily to require the existence
of a corresponding ass in London. He printed that! I never knew
the origin of this "knee breeches" story.

That residence at the Coburg Hotel for three months was a
crowded and uncomfortable nightmare. The indignity and inconvenience---even
the humiliation---of an ambassador beginning his career in an
hotel, especially during the Court season, and a green ambassador
at that! I hope I may not die before our Government does the
conventional duty to provide ambassadors' residences.

The next morning I went to the Chancery (123, Victoria Street)
and my heart sank. I had never in my life been in an American
Embassy. I had had no business with them in Paris or in London
on my previous visits. In fact I had never been in any embassy
except the British Embassy at Washington. But the moment I entered
that dark and dingy hall at 123, Victoria Street, between two
cheap stores---the same entrance that the dwellers in the cheap
flats above used---I knew that Uncle Sam had no fit dwelling
there. And the Ambassador's room greatly depressed me---dingy
with twenty-nine years of dirt and darkness, and utterly undignified.
And the rooms for the secretaries and attachés were the
little bedrooms, kitchen, etc., of that cheap flat; that's all
it was. For the place we paid $1,500 a year. I did not understand
then and I do not understand yet how Lowell, Bayard, Phelps,
Hay, Choate, and Reid endured that cheap hole. Of course they
stayed there only about an hour a day; but they sometimes saw
important people there. And, whether they ever saw anybody there
or not, the offices of the United States Government in London
ought at least to be as good as a common lawyer's office in a
country town in a rural state of our Union. Nobody asked for
anything for an embassy: nobody got anything for an embassy.
I made up my mind in ten minutes that I'd get out of this place.[2]

At the Coburg Hotel, we were very well situated; but the hotel
became intolerably tiresome. Harold Fowler and Frank and I were
there until W.A.W.P. [3]and Kitty [4]came (and Frances Clark came with them). Then we were just a
little too big a hotel party. Every morning I drove down to the
old hole of a Chancery and remained about two hours. There wasn't
very much work to do; and my main business was to become acquainted
with the work and with people---to find myself with reference
to this task, with reference to official life and to London life
in general.

Every afternoon people came to the hotel to see me---some
to pay their respects and to make life pleasant, some out of
mere curiosity, and many for ends of their own. I confess that
on many days nightfall found me completely worn out. But the
evenings seldom brought a chance to rest. The social season was.
going at its full gait; and the new ambassador (any new ambassador)
would have been invited to many functions. A very few days after
my arrival, the Duchess of X invited Frank and me to dinner.
The powdered footmen were the chief novelty of the occasion for
us. But I was much confused because nobody introduced anybody
to anybody else. If a juxtaposition, as at the dinner table,
made an introduction imperative, the name of the lady next you
was so slurred that you couldn't possibly understand it.

Party succeeded party. I went to them because they gave me
a chance to become acquainted with people.

But very early after my arrival, I was of course summoned
by the King. I had presented a copy of my credentials to the
Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward Grey) and the real credentials---the
original in a sealed envelope---I must present to His Majesty.
One morning the King's Master of the Ceremonies, Sir Arthur Walsh,
came to the hotel with the royal coaches, four or five of them,
and the richly caparisoned grooms. The whole staff of the Embassy
must go with me. We drove to Buckingham Palace, and, after waiting
a few moments, I was ushered into the King's presence. He stood
in one of the drawing rooms on the ground floor looking out on
the garden. There stood with him in uniform Sir Edward Grey.
I entered and bowed. He shook my hand, and I spoke my little
piece of three or four sentences.

He replied, welcoming me and immediately proceeded to express
his surprise and regret that a great and rich country like the
United States had not provided a residence for its ambassadors.
"It is not fair to an ambassador," said he; and he
spoke most earnestly.

I reminded him that, although the lack of a home was an inconvenience,
the trouble or discomfort that fell on an ambassador was not
so bad as the wrong impression which I feared was produced about
the United States and its Government, and I explained that we
had had so many absorbing domestic tasks and, in general, so
few absorbing foreign relations, that we had only begun to develop
what might be called an international consciousness.

Sir Edward was kind enough the next time I saw him to remark
that I did that very well and made a good impression on the King.

I could now begin my ambassadorial career proper---call on
the other ambassadors and accept invitations to dinners and the
like.

I was told after I came from the King's presence that the
Queen would receive me in a few minutes. I was shown upstairs,
the door opened, and there in a small drawing room, stood the
Queen alone---a pleasant woman, very royal in appearance. The
one thing that sticks in my memory out of this first conversation
with her Majesty was her remark that she had seen only one man
who had been President of the United States---Mr. Roosevelt.
She hoped he was well. I felt moved to remark that she was not
likely to see many former Presidents because the office was so
hard a task that most of them did not long survive.

"I'm hoping that office will not soon kill the King,"

she said.

In time Page obtained an entirely adequate and dignified house
at 6 Grosvenor Square, and soon found that the American Ambassadorship
had compensations which were hardly suggested by his first glimpse
of the lugubrious Chancery. He brought to this new existence his
plastic and inquisitive mind, and his mighty gusto for the interesting
and the unusual; he immensely enjoyed his meetings with the most
important representatives of all types of British life. The period
of his arrival marked a crisis in British history; Mr. Lloyd George
was supposed to be taxing the aristocracy out of existence; Mr.
Asquith was accused of plotting the destruction of the House of
Lords; the tide of liberalism, even of radicalism, was running
high, and, in the judgment of the conservative forces, England
was tottering to its fall; the gathering mob was about to submerge
everything that had made it great. And the Irish question had
reached another crisis with the passage of the Home Rule Bill,
which Sir Edward Carson was preparing to resist with his Irish
"volunteers."

All these matters formed the staple of talk at dinner tables,
at country houses and at the clubs; and Page found constant entertainment
in the variegated pageant. There were important American matters
to discuss with the Foreign Office---more important than any that
had arisen in recent years---particularly Mexico, and the Panama
Tolls. Before these questions are considered, however, it may
be profitable to print a selection from the many letters which
Page wrote during his first year, giving his impressions of this
England which he had always loved and which a closer view made
him love and admire still more. These letters have the advantage
of presenting a frank and yet sympathetic picture of British society
and British life as it was just before the war.

You can't imagine the intensity of the party feeling here.
I dined to-night in an old Tory family. They had just had a "division"
an hour or two before in the House of Lords on the Home Rule
Bill. Six Lords were at the dinner and their wives. One was a
Duke, two were Bishops, and the other three were Earls. They
expect a general "bust-up." If the King does so and
so, off with the King! That's what they fear the Liberals will
do. It sounds very silly to me; but you can't exaggerate their
fear. The Great Lady, who was our hostess, told me, with tears
in her voice, that she had suspended all social relations with
the Liberal leaders.

At lunch---just five or six hours before---we were at the
Prime Minister's, where the talk was precisely on the other side.
Gladstone's granddaughter was there and several members of the
Cabinet.

Somehow it reminds me of the tense days of the slavery controversy
just before the Civil War.

Yet in the everyday life of the people, you hear nothing about
it. It is impossible to believe that the ordinary man cares a
fig!

Good-night. You don't care a fig for this. But I'll get time
to write you something interesting in a little while.

Yours,

W. H. P.

To Herbert S. Houston

American Embassy
London

Sunday, 24 Aug., 1913.

DEAR H. S. H.:

. . . You know there's been much discussion of the decadence
of the English people. I don't believe a word of it. They have
an awful slum, I hear, as everybody knows, and they have an idle
class. Worse, from an equal-opportunity point-of-view, they have
a very large servant-class, and a large class that depends on
the nobility and the rich. All these are economic and social
drawbacks. But they have always had all these---except that the
slum has become larger in modern years. And I don't see or find
any reason to believe in the theory of decadence. The world never
saw a finer lot of men than the best of their ruling class. You
may search the world and you may search history for finer men
than Lord Morley, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Harcourt, and other members
of the present Cabinet. And I meet such men everywhere---gently
bred, high-minded, physically fit, intellectually cultivated,
patriotic. If the devotion to old forms and the inertia which
makes any change almost impossible strike an American as out-of-date,
you must remember that in the grand old. times of England, they
had all these things and had them worse than they are now. I
can't see that the race is breaking down or giving out. Consider
how their political morals have been pulled up since the days
of the rotten boroughs; consider how their court-life is now
high and decent, and think what it once was. British trade is
larger this year than it ever was, Englishmen are richer then
they ever were and more of them are rich. They write and speak
and play cricket, and govern, and fight as well as they have
ever done---excepting, of course, the writing of Shakespeare.

Another conclusion that is confirmed the more you see of English
life is their high art of living. When they make their money,
they stop money-making and cultivate their minds and their gardens
and entertain their friends and do all the high arts of living---to
perfection. Three days ago a retired soldier gave a garden-party
in my honour, twenty-five miles out of London. There was his
historic house, a part of it 500 years old; there were his ten
acres of garden, his lawn, his trees; and they walk with you
over it all; they sit out-of-doors; they serve tea; they take
life rationally; they talk pleasantly (not jocularly, nor story-telling);
they abhor the smart in talk or in conduct; they have gentleness,
cultivation, the best manners in the world; and they are genuine.
The hostess has me take a basket and go with her while she cuts
it full of flowers for us to bring home; and, as we walk, she
tells the story of the place. She is a tenant-for-life; it is
entailed. Her husband was wounded in South Africa. Her heir is
her nephew. The home, of course, will remain in the family forever.
No, they don't go to London much in recent years: why should
they? But they travel a month or more. They give three big tea-parties---one
when the rhododendrons bloom and the others at stated times.
They have friends to stay with them half the time, perhaps---sometimes
parties of a dozen. England never had a finer lot of folk than
these. And you see them everywhere. The art of living sanely
they have developed to as high a level, I think, as you will
find at any time in any land.

The present political battle is fiercer than you would ever
guess. The Lords feel that they are sure to be robbed: they see
the end of the ordered world. Chaos and confiscation lie before
them. Yet that, too, has nearly always been so. It was so in
the Reform Bill days. Lord Morley said to me the other day that
when all the abolitions had been done, there would be fewer things
abolished than anybody hopes or fears, and that there would be
the same problems in some form for many generations. I'm beginning
to believe that the Englishman has always been afraid of the
future---that's what's keeps him so alert. They say to me: "You
have frightful things happen in the United States---your Governor
of New York,[6]your Thaw case, your corruption, etc., etc.; and yet you seem
sure and tell us that your countrymen feel sure of the safety
of your government." In the newspaper comments on my Southampton[7]speech the
other day, this same feeling cropped up; the American Ambassador
assures us that the note of hope is the dominant note of the
Republic---etc., etc. Yes, they are dull, in a way---not dull,
so much as steady; and yet they have more solid sense than any
other people.

It's an interesting study---the most interesting in the world.
The genuineness of the courtesy, the real kindness and the hospitality
of the English are beyond praise and without limit. In this they
show a strange contradiction to their dickering habits in trade
and their "unctuous rectitude" in stealing continents.
I know a place in the world now where they are steadily moving
their boundary line into other people's territory. I guess they
really believe that the earth belongs to them.

Your mother and Kitty[9]and I are on our way to see Andy.[10]Had you any idea that to motor from London to Skibo means driving
more than eight hundred miles? Our speedometer now shows more
than seven hundred and we've another day to go---at least one
hundred and thirty miles. And we haven't even had a tire accident.
We're having a delightful journey---only this country yields
neither vegetables nor fruits, and I have to live on oatmeal.
They spell it p-o-r-r-i-d-g-e, and they call it puruge. But they
beat all creation as carnivorous folk. We stayed last night at
a beautiful mountain hotel at Braemar (the same town whereat
Stevenson wrote "Treasure Island") and they had nine
kinds of meat for dinner and eggs in three ways, and no vegetables
but potatoes. But this morning we struck the same thin oatbread
that you ate at Grandfather Mountain.

I've never understood the Scotch. I think they are, without
doubt, the most capable race in the world---away from home. But
how they came to be so and how they keep up their character and
supremacy and keep breeding true needs explanation. As you come
through the country, you see the most monotonous and dingy little
houses and thousands of robust children, all dirtier than niggers.
In the fertile parts of the country, the fields are beautifully
cultivated---for Lord This-and-T'Other who lives in London and
comes up here in summer to collect his rents and to shoot. The
country people seem desperately poor. But they don't lose their
robustness. In the solid cities---the solidest you ever saw,
all being of granite---such as Edinburgh and Aberdeen, where
you see the prosperous class, they look the sturdiest and most
independent fellows you ever saw. As they grow old they all look
like blue-bellied Presbyterian elders. Scotch to the marrow---everybody
and everything seem---bare knees alike on the street and in the
hotel with dress coats on, bagpipes---there's no sense in these
things, yet being Scotch they live forever. The first men I saw
early this morning on the street in front of the hotel were two
weather-beaten old chaps, with Fray beards under their chins.
"Guddddd Murrrrnnnggggg, Andy," said one. "Guddddd
murrninggggg, Sandy," said the other; and they trudged on.
They'd dethrone kings before they'd shave differently or drop
their burrs and gutturals or cover their knees or cease lying
about the bagpipe. And you can't get it out of the blood. Your
mother[11]becomes
provoked when I say these things, and I shouldn't wonder if you
yourself resent them and break out quoting Burns. Now the Highlands
can't support a population larger than the mountain counties
of Kentucky. Now your Kentucky feud is a mere disgrace to civilization.
But your Highland feud is celebrated in song and story. Every
clan keeps itself together to this day by its history and by
its plaid. At a turn in the road in the mountains yesterday,
there stood a statue of Rob Roy painted every stripe to life.
We saw his sword and purse in Sir Walter's house at Abbotsford.
The King himself wore the kilt and one of the plaids at the last
court ball at Buckingham Palace, and there is a man who writes
his name and is called "The Macintosh of Macintosh,"
and that's a prouder title than the King's. A little handful
of sheep-stealing bandits got themselves immortalized and heroized,
and they are now all Presbyterian elders. They got their church
"established" in Scotland, and when the King comes
to Scotland, by Jehoshaphat! he is obliged to become a Presbyterian.
Yet your Kentucky feudist---poor devil---he comes too late. The
Scotchman has preempted that particular field of glory. And all
such comparisons make your mother fighting mad. . .

Affectionately,

W. H. P.

To the President

American Embassy, London.
October 25, 1913.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I am moved once in a while to write you privately, not about
any specific piece of public business, but only, if I can, to
transmit something of the atmosphere of the work here. And, since
this is meant quite as much for your amusement as for any information
it may carry, don't read it "in office hours."

The future of the world belongs to us. A man needs to live
here, with two economic eyes in his head, a very little time
to become very sure of this. Everybody will see it presently.
These English are spending their capital, and it is their capital
that continues to give them their vast power. Now what are we
going to do with the leadership of the world presently when it
clearly falls into our hands?[12]And how can we use the English for the highest uses of democracy?

You see their fear of an on-sweeping democracy in their social
treatment of party opponents. A Tory lady told me with tears
that she could no longer invite her Liberal friends to her house:
"I have lost them---they are robbing us, you know."
I made the mistake of saying a word in praise of Sir Edward Grey
to a duke. "Yes, yes, no doubt an able man; but you must
understand, sir, that I don't train with that gang." A bishop
explained to me at elaborate length why the very monarchy is
doomed unless something befalls Lloyd George and his programme.
Every dinner party is made up with strict reference to the party
politics of the guests. Sometimes you imagine you see something
like civil war; and money is flowing out of the Kingdom into
Canada in the greatest volume ever known and I am told that a
number of old families are investing their fortunes in African
lands.

These and such things are, of course, mere chips which show
the direction the slow stream runs. The great economic tide of
the century flows our way. We shall have the big world
questions to decide presently. Then we shall need world policies;
and it will be these old-time world leaders that we shall then
have to work with, more closely than now.

The English make a sharp distinction between the American
people and the American Government---a distinction that they
are conscious of and that they themselves talk about. They do
not think of our people as foreigners. I have a club book
on my table wherein the members are classified as British, Colonial,
American, and Foreign---quite unconsciously. But they do think
of our Government as foreign, and as a frontier sort of thing
without good manners or good faith. This distinction presents
the big task of implanting here a real respect for our Government.
People often think to compliment the American Ambassador by assuming
that he is better than his Government and must at times be ashamed
of it. Of course the Government never does this---never---but
persons in unofficial life; and I have sometimes hit some hard
blows under this condescending provocation. This is the one experience
that I have found irritating. They commiserate me on having a
Government that will not provide an Ambassador's residence---from
the King to my servants. They talk about American lynchings.
Even the Spectator, in an early editorial about you, said
that we should now see what stuff there is in the new President
by watching whether you would stop lynchings. They forever quote
Bryce on the badness of our municipal government. They pretend
to think that the impeachment of governors is common and ought
to be commoner. One delicious M. P. asked me: "Now, since
the Governor of New York is impeached, who becomes Vice-President?"[13]Ignorance, unfathomable ignorance, is at the bottom of much of it; if the
Town Treasurer of Yuba Dam gets a $100 "rake off" on
a paving contract, our city government is a failure.

I am about to conclude that our yellow press does us more
harm abroad than at home, and many of the American correspondents
of the English papers send exactly the wrong news. The whole
governing class of England has a possibly exaggerated admiration
for the American people and something very like contempt for
the American Government.

If I make it out right two causes (in addition to their ignorance)
of their dislike of our Government are (1) its lack of manners
in the past, and (2) its indiscretions of publicity about foreign
affairs. We ostentatiously stand aloof from their polite ways
and courteous manners in many of the every-day, ordinary, unimportant
dealings with them---aloof from the common amenities of long-organized
political life. . . .

Not one of these things is worth mentioning or remembering.
But generations of them have caused our Government to be regarded
as thoughtless of the fine little acts of life---as rude. The
more I find out about diplomatic customs and the more I hear
of the little-big troubles of others, the more need I find to
be careful about details of courtesy.

Thus we are making as brave a show as becomes us. I no longer
dismiss a princess after supper or keep the whole diplomatic
corps waiting while I talk to an interesting man till the Master
of Ceremonies comes up and whispers: "Your Excellency, I
think they are waiting for you to move." But I am both young
and green, and even these folk forgive much to green youth, if
it show a willingness to learn.

But our Government, though green, isn't young enough to plead
its youth. It is time that it, too, were learning Old World manners
in dealing with Old World peoples. I do not know whether we need
a Bureau, or a Major-Domo, or a Master of Ceremonies at Washington,
but we need somebody to prompt us to act as polite as we really
are, somebody to think of those gentler touches that we naturally
forget. Some other governments have such officers---perhaps all.
The Japanese, for instance, are newcomers in world politics.
But this Japanese Ambassador and his wife here never miss a trick;
and they come across the square and ask us how to do it! All
the other governments, too, play the game of small courtesies
to perfection---the French, of course, and the Spanish and---even
the old Turk.

Another reason for the English distrust of our Government
is its indiscretions in the past of this sort: one of our Ministers
to Germany, you will recall, was obliged to resign because the
Government at Washington inadvertently published one of his confidential
despatches; Griscom saved his neck only by the skin, when he
was in Japan, for a similar reason. These things travel all round
the world from one chancery to another and all governments know
them. Yesterday somebody in Washington talked about my despatch
summarizing my talk with Sir Edward Grey about Mexico, and it
appeared in the papers here this morning that Sir Edward had
told me that the big business interests were pushing him hard.
This I sent as only my inference. I had at once to disclaim it.
This leaves in his mind a doubt about our care for secrecy. They
have monstrous big doors and silent men in Downing Street; and,
I am told, a stenographer sits behind a big screen in Sir Edward's
room while an Ambassador talks![14]I wonder if my comments on certain poets, which I have poured
forth there to provoke his, are preserved in the archives of
the British Empire. The British Empire is surely very welcome
to them. I have twice found it useful, by the way, to bring up
Wordsworth when he has begun to talk about Panama tolls. Then
your friend Canon Rawnsley([15]has, without suspecting it, done good service in diplomacy.

The newspaper men here, by the way, both English and American,
are disposed to treat us fairly and to be helpful. The London
Times, on most subjects, is very friendly, and I find
its editors worth cultivating for their own sakes and because
of their position. It is still the greatest English newspaper.
Its general friendliness to the United States, by the way, has
started a rumour that I hear once in a while---that it is really
owned by Americans---nonsense yet awhile. To the fairness and
helpfulness of the newspaper men there are one or two exceptions,
for instance, a certain sneaking whelp who writes for several
papers. He went to the Navy League dinner last night at which
I made a little speech. When I sat down, he remarked to his neighbour,
with a yawn, "Well, nothing in it for me. The Ambassador,
I am afraid, said nothing for which I can demand his recall."
They, of course, don't care thrippence about me; it's you they
hope to annoy.

Then after beating them at their own game of daily little
courtesies, we want a fight with them---a good stiff fight about
something wherein we are dead right, to remind them sharply that
we have sand in our craw.[16]I pray every night for such a fight; for they like fighting men.
Then they'll respect our Government as they already respect us---if
we are dead right.

But I've little hope for a fight of the right kind with Sir
Edward Grey. He is the very reverse of insolent---fair, frank,
sympathetic, and he has so clear an understanding of our real
character that he'd yield anything that his party and Parliament
would permit. He'd make a good American with the use of very
little sandpaper. Of course I know him better than I know any
other member of the Cabinet, but he seems to me the best-balanced
man of them all.

1 can assure you emphatically that the tariff act[17]does command their respect and
is already having an amazing influence on their opinion of our
Government. Lord Mersey, a distinguished law lord and a fine
old fellow of the very best type of Englishman, said to me last
Sunday, "I wish to thank you for stopping half-way in reducing
your tariff; that will only half ruin us." A lady of a political
family (Liberal) next whom I sat at dinner the other night (and
these women know their politics as no class of women among us
do) said: "Tell me something about your great President.
We hadn't heard much about him nor felt his hand till your tariff
bill passed. He seems to have real power in the Government. You
know we do not always know who has power in your Government."
Lord Grey, the one-time Governor-General of Canada, stopped looking
at the royal wedding presents the other evening long enough to
say: "The United States Government is waking up---waking
up."

I sum up these atmospheric conditions---I do not presume to
call them by so definite a name as recommendations:

We are in the international game---not in its Old World intrigues
and burdens and sorrows and melancholy, but. in the inevitable
way to leadership and to cheerful mastery in the future; and
everybody knows that we are in it but us. It is a sheer blind
habit that causes us to continue to try to think of ourselves
as aloof. They think in terms of races here, and we are of their
race, and we shall become the strongest and the happiest branch
of it.

While we play the game with them, we shall play it better
by playing it under their long-wrought-out rules of courtesy
in everyday affairs.

We shall play it better, too, if our Government play it quietly---except
when the subject demands publicity. I have heard that in past
years the foreign representatives of our Government have reported
too few things and much too meagrely. I have heard since I have
been here that these representatives become timid because Washington
has for many a year conducted its foreign business too much in
the newspapers; and the foreign governments themselves are always
afraid of this.

Meantime I hardly need tell you of my appreciation of such
a chance to make so interesting a study and to enjoy so greatly
the most interesting experience, I really believe, in the whole
world. I only hope that in time I may see how to shape the constant
progression of incidents into a constructive course of events;
for we are soon coming into a time of big changes.

You're doing the bigger job: as the world now is, there is
no other job so big as yours or so well worth doing; but I'm
having more fun. I'm having more fun than anybody else anywhere.
It's a large window you look through on the big world---here
in London; and, while I am for the moment missing many of the
things that I've most cared about hitherto (such as working for
the countryman, guessing at American public opinion, coffee that's
fit to drink, corn bread, sunshine, and old faces) big new things
come on the horizon. Yet a man's personal experiences are nothing
in comparison with the large job that our Government has to do
in its Foreign Relations. I'm beginning to begin to see what
it is. The American people are taken most seriously here. I'm
sometimes almost afraid of the respect and even awe in which
they hold us. But the American Government is a mere joke to them.
They don't even believe that we ourselves believe in it. We've
had no foreign policy, no continuity of plan, no matured scheme,
no settled way of doing things and we seem afraid of Irishmen
or Germans or some "element" when a chance for real
action comes. I'm writing to the President about this and telling
him stories to show how it works.

We needn't talk any longer about keeping aloof. If Cecil Spring
Rice would tell you the complaints he has already presented and
if you saw the work that goes on here---more than in all the
other posts in Europe---you'd see that all the old talk about
keeping aloof is Missouri buncombe. We're very much "in,"
but not frankly in.

I wish you'd keep your eye on these things in cabinet meetings.
The English and the whole English world are ours, if we have
the courtesy to take them---fleet and trade and all; and we go
on pretending we are afraid of "entangling alliances."
What about disentangling alliances?

We're in the game. There's no use in letting a few wild Irish
or cocky Germans scare us. We need courtesy and frankness, and
the destinies of the world will be in our hands. They'll fall
there anyhow after we are dead; but I wish to see them come,
while my own eyes last. Don't you?

. . . We have a splendid, big old house---not in any way pretentious---a
commonplace house in fact for fashionable London and the least
showy and costly of the Embassies. But it does very well---it's
big and elegantly plain and dignified. We have fifteen servants
in the house. They do just about what seven good ones would do
in the United States, but they do it a great deal better. They
pretty nearly run themselves and the place. The servant question
is admirably solved here. They divide the work according to a
fixed and unchangeable system and they do it remarkably well---in
their own slow English way. We simply let them alone, unless
something important happens to go wrong. Katharine simply tells
the butler that we'll have twenty-four people to dinner to-morrow
night and gives him a list of them. As they come in, the men
at the door address every one correctly---Your Lordship or Your
Grace, or what not. When they are all in, the butler comes to
the reception room and announces dinner. We do the rest. As every
man goes out, the butler asks him if he'll have a glass of water
or of grog or a cigar; he calls his car, puts him in it, and
that's the end of it. Bully good plan. But in the United States
that butler, whose wages are less than the ramshackle nigger
I had at Garden City to keep the place neat, would have a business
of his own. But here he is a sort of duke downstairs. He sits
at the head of the servants' table and orders them around and
that's worth more than money to an Old World servile mind.

The "season" doesn't begin till the King comes back
and Parliament opens, in February. But every kind of club and
patriotic and educational organization is giving its annual dinner
now. I've been going to them and making after-dinner speeches
to get acquainted and also to preach into them some little knowledge
of American ways and ideals. They are very nice---very. You could
not suggest or imagine any improvement in their kindness and
courtesy. They do all these things in some ways better than we.
They have more courtesy. They make far shorter speeches. But
they do them all too much alike. Still they do get much pleasure
out of them and much instruction too.

Then we are invited to twice as many private dinners and luncheons
as we can attend. At these, these people are at their best. But
it is yet quite confusing. A sea of friendly faces greets you---you
can't remember the names. Nobody ever introduces anybody to anybody;
and if by accident anybody ever tries, he simply says---"Uh-o-oh-Lord
Xzwwxkmpt." You couldn't understand it if you had to be
hanged.

But we are untangling some of this confusion and coming to
make very real and very charming friends.

About December 20, everybody who is anybody leaves London.
They go to their country places for about a fortnight or they
go to the continent. Almost everything stops. It has been the
only dull time at the Embassy that I've had. Nothing is going
on now. But up to two days ago, it kept a furious gait. I'm glad
of a little rest.

Dealing with the Government doesn't present the difficulties
that I feared. Sir Edward Grey is in the man responsible for
the ease with which it is done. He is a frank and fair and truthful
man. You will find him the day after to-morrow precisely where
you left him the day before yesterday. We get along very well
indeed. I think we should get along if we had harder tasks one
with the other. And the English people are even more friendly
than the Government. You have no idea of their respect for the
American Nation. Of course there is much ignorance, sometimes
of a surprising sort. Very many people, for instance, think that
all the Americans are rich. A lady told me the other night how
poor she is---she is worth only $1,250,000---"nothing like
all you Americans." She was quite sincere. In fact the wealth
of the world (and the poverty, too) is centred here in an amazing
way. You can't easily take it in---how rich or how many rich
English families there are. They have had wealth for generation
after generation, and the surprising thing is, they take care
of it. They spend enormously---seldom ostentatiously---but they
are more than likely to add some of their income every year to
their principal. They have better houses in town and in the country
than I had imagined. They spend vast fortunes in making homes
in which they expect to live forever---generation after generation.

To an American democrat the sad thing is the servile class.
Before the law the chimney sweep and the peer have exactly the
same standing. They have worked that out with absolute justice.
But there it stops. The serving class is what we should call
abject. It does not occur to them that they might ever become---or
that their descendants might ever become---ladies and gentlemen.

The "courts". are a very fine sight. The diplomatic
ladies sit on a row of seats on one side the throne room, the
Duchesses on a row opposite. The King and Queen sit on a raised
platform with the royal family. The Ambassadors come in first
and bow and the King shakes hands with them. Then come the forty
or more Ministers---no shake for them. In front of the King are
a few officers in gaudy uniform, some Indians of high rank (from
India) and the court officials are all round about, with pages
who hold up the Queen's train. Whenever the Queen and King move,
two court officials back before them, one carrying a gold stick
and the other a silver stick.

The ladies to be presented come along. They curtsy to the
King, then to the Queen, and disappear in the rooms farther on.
The Ambassadors (all in gaudy uniforms but me) stand near the
throne---stand through the whole performance. One night after
an hour or two of ladies coming along and curtsying and disappearing,
I whispered to the Spanish Ambassador, "There must be five
hundred of these ladies." "U-m," said he, as he
shifted his weight to the other foot, "I'm sure there are
five thousand!" When they've all been presented, the King
and Queen go into a room where a stand-up supper is served. The
royalty and the diplomatic folks go into that room, too; and
their Majesties walk around and talk with whom they please. Into
another and bigger room everybody else goes and gets supper.
Then we all flock back to the throne room; and preceded by the
backing courtiers, their Majesties come out into the floor and
bow to the Ambassadors, then to the Duchesses, then to the general
diplomatic group and they go out. The show is ended. We come
downstairs and wait an hour for our car and come home about midnight.
The uniforms on the men and the jewels on the ladies (by the
ton) and their trains---all this makes a very brilliant spectacle.
The American Ambassador and his Secretaries and the Swiss and
the Portuguese are the only ones dressed in citizens' clothes.

At a levee, the King receives only gentlemen. Here they come
in all kinds of uniforms. If you are not entitled to wear a uniform,
you have a dark suit, knee breeches, and a funny little tin sword.
I'm going to adopt the knee breeches part of it for good when
I go home---golf breeches in the day time and knee breeches at
night. You've no idea how nice and comfortable they are---though
it is a devil of a lot of trouble to put 'em on. Of course every
sort of man here but the Americans wears some sort of decorations
around his neck or on his stomach, at these functions. For my
part, I like it---here. The women sparkle with diamonds, the
men strut; the King is a fine man with a big bass voice and he
talks very well and is most agreeable; the Queen is very gracious;
the royal ladies (Queen Victoria's daughters, chiefly) are nice;
you see all the big Generals and all the big Admirals and the
great folk of every sort---fine show.

You've no idea how much time and money they spend on shooting.
the King has been shooting most of the time for three months.
He's said to be a very good shot. He has sent me, on different
occasions, grouse, a haunch of venison, and pheasants.

But except on these occasions, you never think about the King.
The people go about their business as if he didn't exist, of
course. They begin work much later than we do. You'll not find
any of the shops open till about ten o'clock. The sun doesn't
shine except once in a while and you don't know it's daylight
till about ten. You know the House of Commons has night sessions
always. Nobody is in the Government offices, except clerks and
secretaries, till the afternoon. We dine at eight, and, when
we have a big dinner, at eight thirty.

I like these people (most of 'em) immensely. They are very
genuine and frank, good fighters and folk of our own sort---after
you come to know them. At first they have no manners and don't
know what to do. But they warm up to you later. They have abundant
wit, but much less humour than we. And they know how to live.

Except that part of life which is ministered to in mechanical
ways, they resist conveniences. They don't really like bathrooms
yet. They prefer great tin tubs, and they use bowls and pitchers
when a bathroom is next door. The telephone---Lord deliver us!---I've
given it up. They know nothing about it. (It is a government
concern, but so are the telegraph and the post office, and they
are remarkably good and swift.) You can't buy a newspaper on
the street, except in the afternoon. Cigar-stores are as scarce
as hen's teeth. Barber-shops are all "hairdressers"---dirty
and wretched beyond description. You can't get a decent pen;
their newspapers are as big as tablecloths. In this aquarium
in which we live (it rains every day) they have only three vegetables
and two of them are cabbages. They grow all kinds of fruit in
hothouses, and (I can't explain this) good land in admirable
cultivation thirty miles from London sells for about half what
good corn land in Iowa brings. Lloyd George has scared the land-owners
to death.

Party politics runs so high that many Tories will not invite
Liberals to dinner. They are almost at the point of civil war.
I asked the Prime Minister the other day how he was going to
prevent war. He didn't give any clear answer. During this recess
of Parliament, though there's no election pending, all the Cabinet
are all the time going about making speeches on Ireland. They
talk to me about it.

"What would you do?"

"Send 'em all to the United States," say I.

"No, no."

They have had the Irish question three hundred years and they
wouldn't be happy without it. One old Tory talked me deaf abusing
the Liberal Government.

"You do this way in the United States---hate one another,
don't you?"

"No," said I, "we live like angels in perfect
harmony except a few weeks before election."

"The devil you do! You don't hate one another? What do
you do for enemies? I couldn't get along without enemies to swear
at."

If you think it's all play, you fool yourself; I mean this
job. There's no end of the work. It consists of these parts:
Receiving people for two hours every day, some on some sort of
business, some merely "to pay respects," attending
to a large (and exceedingly miscellaneous) mail; going to the
Foreign Office on all sorts of errands; looking up the oddest
assortment of information that you ever heard of; making reports
to Washington on all sorts of things; then the so-called social
duties---giving dinners, receptions, etc., and attending them.
I hear the most important news I get at so-called social functions.
Then the court functions; and the meetings and speeches! The
American Ambassador must go all over England and explain every
American thing. You'd never recover from the shock if you could
hear me speaking about Education, Agriculture, the observance
of Christmas, the Navy, the Anglo-Saxon, Mexico, the Monroe Doctrine,
Co-education, Woman Suffrage, Medicine, Law, Radio-Activity,
Flying, the Supreme Court, the President as a Man of letters,
Hookworm, the Negro---just get down the Encyclopaedia and continue
the list. I've done this every week-night for a month, hand running,
with a few afternoon performances thrown in! I have missed only
one engagement in these seven months; and that was merely a private
luncheon. I have been late only once. I have the best chauffeur
in the world---he deserves credit for much of that. Of course,
I don't get time to read a book. In fact, I can't keep up with
what goes on at home. To read a newspaper eight or ten days old,
when they come in bundles of three or four---is impossible. What
isn't telegraphed here, I miss; and that means I miss most things.

I forgot, there are a dozen other kinds of activities, such
as American marriages, which they always want the Ambassador
to attend; getting them out of jail, when they are jugged (I
have an American woman on my hands now, whose four children come
to see me every day); looking after the American insane; helping
Americans move the bones of their ancestors; interpreting the
income-tax law; receiving medals for Americans; hearing American
fiddlers, pianists, players; sitting for American sculptors and
photographers; sending telegrams for property owners in Mexico;
reading letters from thousands of people who have shares in estates
here; writing letters of introduction; getting tickets to the
House Gallery; getting seats in the Abbey; going with people
to this and that and t'other; getting tickets to the races, the
art-galleries, the House of Lords; answering fool questions about
the United States put by Englishmen. With a military attaché,
a naval attaché, three secretaries, a private secretary,
two automobiles, Alice's private secretary, a veterinarian, an
immigration agent, consuls everywhere, a despatch agent, lawyers,
doctors, messengers---they keep us all busy. A woman turned up
dying the other day. I sent for a big doctor. She got well. As
if that wasn't enough, both the woman and the doctor had to come
and thank me (fifteen minutes each). Then each wrote a letter!
Then there are people who are going to have a Fair here; others
who have a Fair coming on at San Francisco; others at San Diego;
secretaries and returning and outgoing diplomats come and go
(lunch for 'em all); niggers come up from Liberia; Rhodes Scholars
from Oxford; Presidential candidates to succeed Huerta; people
who present books; women who wish to go to court; Jews who are
excited about Rumania; passports, passports to sign; peace committees
about the hundred years of peace; opera singers going to the
United States; artists who have painted some American's portrait---don't
you see? I haven't said a word about reporters and editors: the
city's full of them.

. . . The game is pretty much as it has been. I can't think
of any new kinds of things to write you. The old kinds simply
multiply and repeat themselves. But we are beginning now really
to become acquainted, and some life friendships will grow out
of our experience. And there's no doubt about its being instructive.
I get glimpses of the way in which great governments deal with
one another, in ways that our isolated, and, therefore, safe
government seldom has any experience of. For instance, one of
the Lords of the Admiralty told me the other night that he never
gets out of telephone reach of the office---not even half an
hour. "The Admiralty," said he, "never sleeps."
He has a telephone by his bed which he can hear at any moment
in the night. I don't believe that they really expect the German
fleet to attack them any day or night. But they would not be
at all surprised if it did so to-night. They talk all the time
of the danger and of the probability of war; they don't expect
it; but most wars have come without warning, and they are all
the time prepared to begin a fight in an hour.

They talk about how much Germany must do to strengthen her
frontier against Russia and her new frontier on the Balkan States.
They now have these problems in hand and therefore they are for
the moment not likely to provoke a fight. But they might.

It is all pitiful to see them thinking forever about danger
and defense. The controversy about training boys for the army
never ends. We don't know in the United States what we owe to
the Atlantic Ocean---safe separation from all these troubles.
. . .

But I've often asked both Englishmen and Americans in a dining
room where there were many men of each country, whether they
could look over the company and say which were English and which
were Americans. Nobody can tell till---they begin to talk.

The ignorance of the two countries, each of the other, is
beyond all belief. A friend of Kitty's---an American---received
a letter from the United States yesterday. The maid noticed the
stamp, which had the head of George Washington on it. Every stamp
in this kingdom bears the image of King George. She asked if
the American stamp had on it the head of the American Ambassador!
I've known far wiser people to ask far more foolish questions.

Affectionately,

W. H. P.

To Mrs. Ralph W. Page

London, Christmas-is-coming, 1913.

MY DEAR LEILA:

. . . Her work [Mrs. Walter H. Page's] is all the work of
going and receiving and---of reading. She reads incessantly and
enormously; and, when she gets tired, she goes to bed. That's
all there is about it. Lord! I wish I could. But, when I get
tired, I have to go and make another speech. They think the American
Ambassador has omniscience for a foible and oratory as a pastime.

In some ways my duties are very instructive. We get different
points of view on many things, some better than we had before
had, some worse. For instance, life is pretty well laid out here
in water-tight compartments; and you can't let a stream in from
one to another without danger of sinking the ship. Four reporters
have been here to-day because Mr. and Mrs. Sayre[21]arrived this morning. Every one
of 'em asked the same question, "Who met them at the station?"
That's the chief thing they wished to know. When I said "I
did"---that fixed the whole thing on the highest peg of
dignity. They could classify the whole proceeding properly, and
they went off happy. Again: You've got to go in to dinner in
the exact order prescribed by the constitution; and, if you avoid
that or confuse that, you'll never be able to live it down. And
so about Government, Literature, Art---everything. Don't you
forget your water-tight compartments. If you do, you are gone!
They have the same toasts at every public dinner. One is to "the
guests." Now you needn't say a word about the guests when
you respond. But they've been having toasts to the guests since
the time of James I and they can't change it. They had me speak
to "the guests" at a club last night, when they wanted
me to talk about Mexico! The winter has come---the winter months
at least. But they have had no cold weather---not so cold as
you have in Pinehurst. But the sun has gone out to sea---clean
gone. We never see it. A damp darkness (semi-darkness at least)
hangs over us all the time. But we manage to feel our way about.

A poor photograph goes to you for Xmas---a poor thing enough
surely. But you get Uncle Bob[22]busy on the job of paying for an Ambassador's house. Then we'll
bring Christmas presents home for you. What a game we are playing,
we poor folks here, along with Ambassadors whose governments
pay them four times what ours pays. But we don't give the game
away, you bet! We throw the bluff with a fine, straight poker
face.

Affectionately,

W. H. P.

To Frank N. Doubleday and

Others

London, Sunday, December 28,1913.

MY DEAR COMRADES:

I was never one of those abnormal creatures who got Christmas
all ready by the Fourth of July. The true spirit of the celebration
has just now begun to work on me ---three days late. In this
respect the spirit is very like Christmas plum-pudding. Moreover,
we've just got the patriotic fervour flowing at high tide this
morning. This is the President's birthday. We've put up the Stars
and Stripes on the roof; and half an hour ago the King's Master
of Ceremonies drove up in a huge motor car and, being shown into
my presence in the state drawing room, held his hat in his hand
and (said he):

"Your Excellency: I am commanded by the King to express
to you His Majesty's congratulations on the birthday of the President,
to wish him a successful administration and good health and long
life and to convey His Majesty's greetings to Your Excellency;
and His Majesty commands me to express the hope that you will
acquaint the President with His Majesty's good wishes."

Whereto I made just as pretty a little speech as your 'umble
sarvant could. Then we sat down, I called in Mrs. Page and my
secretary and we talked like human beings.

Having worked like the devil, upon whom, I imagine, at this
bibulous season many heavy duties fall---having thus toiled for
two months---the international docket is clean, I've got done
a round of twenty-five speeches (O Lord!) I've slept three whole
nights, I've made my dinner-calls---you see I'm feeling pretty
well, in this first period of quiet life I've yet found in this
Babylon. Praise Heaven! they go off for Christmas. Everything's
shut up tight. The streets of London are as lonely and as quiet
as the road to Oyster Bay while the Oyster is in South America.
It's about as mild here as with you in October and as damp as
Sheepshead's Bay in an autumn storm. But such people as you meet
complain of the c-o-l-d----the c-o-l-d; and they run into their
heatless houses and put on extra waistcoats and furs and throw
shawls over their knees and curse Lloyd George and enjoy themselves.
They are a great people ---even without mint juleps in summer
or eggnog in winter; and I like them. The old gouty Lords curse
the Americans for the decline of drinking. And you can't live
among them without laughing yourself to death and admiring them,
too. It's a fine race to be sprung from.

All this field of international relations---you fellows regard
it as a bore. So it used to be before my entrance into the game!
But it's everlastingly interesting. Just to give him a shock,
I asked the Foreign Secretary the other day what difference it
would make if the Foreign Offices were all to go out of business
and all the Ambassadors were to be hanged. He thought a minute
and said: "Suppose war kept on in the Balkans, the Russians
killed all their Jews, Germany took Holland and sent an air-fleet
over London, the Japanese landed in California, the English took
all the oil-wells in Central and South America and---"

"Good Lord!" said I, "do you and I prevent
all these calamities? If so, we don't get half the credit that
is due us---do we?"

"You could ask the same question about any group or profession
of men in the world; and on a scratch, I imagine that any of
them would be missed less than they think. But the realness and
the bigness of the job here in London is simply oppressive. We
don't even know what it is in the United States and, of course,
we don't go about doing it right. If we did, we shouldn't pick
up a green fellow on the plain of Long Island and send him here;
we'd train the most capable male babies we have from the cradle.
But this leads a long way.

As I look back over these six or seven months, from the pause
that has come this week, I'm bound to say (being frank, not to
say vain) that I had the good fortune to do one piece of work
that was worth the effort and worth coming to do-about that infernal
Mexican situation. An abler man would have done it better; but,
as it was, I did it; and I have a most appreciative letter about
it from the President.

By thunder, he's doing his job, isn't he? Whether you like
the job or not, you've got to grant that. When I first came over
here. I found a mild curiosity about Wilson---only mild. But
now they sit up and listen and ask most eager questions. He has
pressed his personality most strongly on the governing class
here.

Yours heartily,

W. H. P.

To the President

American Embassy, London
[May 11, 1914]

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The King of Denmark (I always think of Hamlet) having come
to make his royal kinsman of these Isles a visit, his royal kinsman
to-night gave a state dinner at the palace whereto the Ambassadors
of the eight Great Powers were, of course, invited. Now I don't
know how other kings do, but I'm willing to swear by King George
for a job of this sort. The splendour of the thing is truly regal
and the friendliness of it very real and human; and the company
most uncommon. Of course the Ambassadors and their wives were
there, the chief rulers of the Empire and men and women of distinction
and most of the royal family. The dinner and the music and the
plate and the decorations and the jewels and the uniforms----all
these were regal; but there is a human touch about it that seems
almost democratic.

All for His Majesty of Denmark, a country with fewer people
and less wealth than New Jersey. This whole royal game is most
interesting. Lloyd George and H. H. Asquith and John Morley were
there, all in white knee-breeches of silk, and swords and most
gaudy coats---these that are the radicals of the Kingdom, in
literature and in action. Veterans of Indian and South African
wars stood on either side of every door and of every stairway,
dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh dressed, like so many statues,
never blinking an eye. Every person in the company is printed,
in all the papers, with every title he bears. Crowds lined the
streets in front of the palace to see the carriages go in and
to guess who was in each. To-morrow the Diplomatic Corps calls
on King Christian and to-morrow night King George commands us
to attend the opera as his guests.

Whether it's the court, or the honours and the orders and
all the social and imperial spoils, that keep the illusion up,
or whether it is the Old World inability to change anything,
you can't ever quite decide. In Defoe's time they put pots of
herbs on the desks of every court in London to keep the plague
off. The pots of herbs are yet put on every desk in every court
room in London. Several centuries ago somebody tried to break
into the Bank of England. A special guard was detached---a little
company of soldiers---to stand watch at night. The bank has twice
been moved and is now housed in a building that would stand a
siege; but that guard, in the same uniform goes on duty every
night. Nothing is ever abolished, nothing ever changed. On the
anniversary of King Charles's execution, his statue in Trafalgar
Square is covered with flowers. Every month, too, new books appear
about the mistresses of old kings---as if they, too, were of
more than usual interest: I mean serious, historical books. From
the King's palace to the humblest house I've been in, there are
pictures of kings and queens. In every house, too (to show how
nothing ever changes), the towels are folded in the same peculiar
way. In every grate in the kingdom the coal fire is laid in precisely
the same way. There is not a salesman in any shop on Piccadilly
who does not, in the season, wear a long-tail coat. Everywhere
they say a second grace at dinner---not at the end---but before
the dessert, because two hundred years ago they dared not wait
longer lest the parson be under the table: the grace is said
to-day before dessert! I tried three months to persuade
my "Boots" to leave off blacking the soles of my shoes
under the instep. He simply couldn't do it. Every "Boots" in the Kingdom does it. A man of learning had an article in an afternoon paper a few weeks ago which began thus: "It is now universally conceded by the French and the Americans that the decimal system is a failure," and he went on to concoct a scheme for our money that would be more "rational" and "historical." In this hot debate about Ulster a frequent phrase used is, "Let us see if we can't find the right formula to solve the difficulty"; their whole lives are formulas. Now may not all the honours and garters and thistles and O. M.'s and K. C. B.'s and all manner of gaudy sinecures be secure, only because they can't abolish anything? My servants
sit at table in a certain order, and Mrs. Page's maid wouldn't
yield her precedence to a mere housemaid for any mortal consideration---any
more than a royal person of a certain rank would yield to one
of a lower rank. A real democracy is as far off as doomsday.
So you argue, till you remember that it is these same people
who made human liberty possible---to a degree---and till you
sit day after day and hear them in the House of Commons, mercilessly
pounding one another. Then you are puzzled. Do they keep all
these outworn things because they are incapable of changing anything,
or do these outworn burdens keep them from becoming able to change
anything? I daresay it works both ways. Every venerable ruin,
every outworn custom, makes the King more secure; and the King
gives veneration to every ruin and keeps respect for every outworn custom.

Praise God for the Atlantic Ocean! It is the geographical
foundation of our liberties. Yet, as I've often written, there
are men here, real men, ruling men, mighty men, and a vigorous stock.

A civilization, especially an old civilization, isn't an easy nut to crack. But I notice that the men of vision keep their thought on us. They never forget that we are 100 million strong
and that we dare do new things; and they dearly love to ask questions about---Rockefeller! Our power, our adaptability, our potential wealth they never forget. They'll hold fast to our favour for reasons of prudence as well as for reasons of kinship. And, whenever we choose to assume the leadership of the world, they'll grant it---gradually---and follow loyally. They cannot become French, and they dislike the Germans. They must keep in our boat for safety as well as for comfort.

Yours heartily,

WALTER H. PAGE.

.

The following extracts are made from other letters written
at this time:

. . . To-night I had a long talk with the Duchess of X, a
kindly woman who spends much time and money in the most helpful
"uplift" work; that's the kind of woman she is.

Now she and the Duke are invited to dine at the French Ambassador's
to-morrow night. "If the Duke went into any house where
there was any member of this Government," said she, "he'd
turn and walk out again. We thought we'd better find out who
the French Ambassador's guests are. We didn't wish to ask him
nor to have correspondence about it. Therefore the Duke sent
his Secretary quietly to ask the Ambassador's Secretary---before
we accepted."

This is now a common occurrence. We had Sir Edward Grey to
dinner a little while ago and we had to make sure we had no Tory
guests that night.

This same Duchess of X sat in the Peeresses' gallery of the
House of Lords to-night till 7 o'clock. "I had to sit in
plain sight of the wives of two members of the Cabinet and of
the wife and daughter of the Prime Minister. I used to know them,"
she said, "and it was embarrassing."

Thus the revolution proceeds. For that's what it is.

.

. . . On the other hand the existing order is the most skilfully
devised machinery for perpetuating itself that has ever grown
up among civilized men. Did you ever see a London directory?
It hasn't names alphabetically; but one section is "Tradesmen,"
another "The City," etc., etc., and another "The
Court." Any one who has ever been presented at Court is
in the "Court" section, and you must sometimes look
in several sections to find a man. Yet everybody so values these
distinctions that nobody complains of the inconvenience. When
the Liberal party makes Liberals Peers in order to have Liberals
in the House of Lords, lo! they soon turn Conservative after
they get there. The system perpetuates itself and stifles the
natural desire for change that most men in a state of nature
instinctively desire in order to assert their own personalities.
. . .

.

. . . All this social life which engages us at this particular
season, sets a man to thinking. The mass of the people are very
slow---almost dull; and the privileged are most firmly entrenched.
The really alert people are the aristocracy. They see the drift
of events. "What is the pleasantest part of your country
to live in?" Dowager Lady X asked me on Sunday, more than
half in earnest. "My husband's ancestors sat in the House
of Lords for six hundred years. My son sits there now---a dummy.
They have taken all power from the Lords; they are taxing us
out of our lands; they are saying the monarchy for destruction
last. England is of the past-all is going. God knows what is
coming."

.

. . . And presently the presentations come. Lord! how sensible
American women scramble for this privilege! It royally fits a
few of them. Well, I've made some rules about presentations myself,
since it's really a sort of personal perquisite of the Ambassador.
One rule is, I don't present any but handsome women. Pretty girls:
that's what you want when you are getting up a show. Far too
many of ours come here and marry Englishmen. I think I shall
make another rule and exact a promise that after presentation
they shall go home. But the American women do enliven London.
. . .

.

That triumph with the tariff is historic. I wrote to the President:
"Score one!" And I have been telling the London writers
on big subjects, notably the editor of the Economist, that
this event, so quiet and undramatic, will mark a new epoch in
the trade history of the world. . . This island is a good breeding
place for men whose children find themselves and develop into
real men in freer lands. All that is needed to show the whole
world that the future is ours is just this sort of an act of
self-confidence. You know the old story of the Negro who saw
a ghost---"Git outen de way, Mr. Rabbit, and let somebody
come who kin run!" Score one! We're making History,
and these people here know it. The trade of the world, or as
much of it as is profitable, we may take as we will. The over-taxed,
under-productive, army-burdened men of the Old World---alas!
I read a settled melancholy in much of their statesmanship and
in more of their literature. The most cheerful men in official
life here are the High Commissioners of Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and such fellows who know what the English race is doing
and can do freed from uniforms and heavy taxes and class feeling
and such like. . . .

.

. . . The two things that this island has of eternal value
are its gardens and its men. Nature sprinkles it almost every
day and holds its moisture down so that every inch of it is forever
green; and somehow men thrive as the lawns do---the most excellent
of all races for progenitors. You and I[23]can never be thankful enough that our ancestors came of this stock. Even those that have stayed
have cut a wide swath, and they wield good scythes yet. But I
have moods when I pity them---for their dependence, for instance,
on a navy (2 keels to 1) for their very bread and meat. They
frantically resent conveniences. They build their great law court
building (the architecture ecclesiastical) so as to provide an
entrance hall of imposing proportions which they use once a year;
and to get this fine hall they have to make their court rooms,
which they must use all the time, dark and small and inaccessible.
They think as much of that once-a-year ceremony of opening their
courts as they think of the even justice that they dispense;
somehow they feel that the justice depends on the ceremony.

This moss that has grown all over their lives (some of it
very pretty and most of it very comfortable-it's soft and warm)
is of no great consequence---except that they think they'd die
if it were removed. And this state of mind gives us a good key
to their character and habits.

What are we going to do with this England and this Empire,
presently, when economic forces unmistakably put the leadership
of the race in our hands? How can we lead it and use it for the
highest purposes of the world and of democracy? We can do what
we like if we go about it heartily and with good manners (any
man prefers to yield to a gentleman rather than to a rustic)
and throw away---gradually---our isolating fears and alternate
boasting and bashfulness. "What do we most need to learn
from you?" I asked a gentle and bejewelled nobleman the
other Sunday, in a country garden that invited confidences. "If
I may speak without offence, modesty." A commoner in the
company, who had seen the Rocky Mountains, laughed, and said:
"No; see your chance and take it: that's what we did in
the years when we made the world's history." . . .

↑Mr. Irwin Laughlin, first secretary of the American Embassy in London.

↑In about a year Page moved the Chancery to the present satisfactory quarters at No. 4 Grosvenor Gardens.

↑The astonishing thing about Page's comment on the leadership of the United States---if it would only take this leadership---is that these letters were written in 1913, a year before the outbreak of the war, and eight years before the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921-22.

↑Just what this critical Briton had in mind, in thinking that the removal of a New York governor created a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency, is not clear. Possibly, however, he had a cloudy recollection of the fact that Theodore Roosevelt, after serving as Governor of New York State, became Vice-President, and may have concluded from this that the two offices were held by the same man.

↑For years this idea of the stenographer back of a screen in the Foreign Office has been abroad, but it is entirely unfounded. Several years ago a Foreign Secretary, perhaps Lord Salisbury, put a screen behind his desk to keep off the draughts and from this precaution the myth arose that it shielded a stenographer who took a complete record of ambassadorial conversations. After an ambassador leaves, the Foreign Secretary, however, does write out the important points in the conversation. Copies are made and printed, and sent to the King, the Prime Minister, the British Ambassador in the country to which the interview relates, and occasionally to others. All these records are, of course, carefully preserved in the archives of the Foreign Office.

↑The Rev. Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, the well-known Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick, poet and student of Wordsworth. President Wilson, who used occasionally to spend his vacation in the Lake region, was one of his friends.

↑It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the Ambassador was thinking only of diplomatic "fight."

↑The Underwood Bill revising the tariff "downward" became a law October, 1913. It was one of the first important measures of the new Wilson Administration.